So why is it, that so many people are split when it comes to FF XIV? Some have unplayable lag, others have barely any lag at all. We all have issues, no AH, and all that, but why is it so much better for some, than others?

The most common reason i have seen, is low PC specs. Most of the people that have horrendous lag are running minimal specs. Bad lag is a game killer for anyone, with or without surplus XP. Some people have great rigs, and still find themselves in a lag fest, but i wonder if it's the same.

Can we use this thread as a tool? Post your PC specs, and your lag in seconds. For instance:

As long as the hardware is roughly in the same class, we should not be seeing any significant difference from one system to another. The fact that there is such a massive difference, even in nearly identical systems, points directly to a design/optimization issue.

I have yet to see anything in this game that should be taking such a massive toll on people's systems. The graphics are good, but not that good.

The UI is laggy because it was made to wait for server responses for practically everything. As compared to other UI models, XIV employs a kind of "don't do anything client-side until it receives all info from the server" model. It's just a poor design method for a game which is so heavy on interface use.

The fact of the matter is that any PROPERLY designed UI would enable the inventory window to show within a millisecond of pressing the button regardless of your system specs. Loading of items from the server takes time as it is realistically restricted by hardware. But at least load the window instantly, and put one of those swirly load icons in the middle until it's finished receiving item data to display. Just to signify to the player that their request went through and it's working. Not this "I pressed the button and wait 5 seconds for any reaction whatsoever" nonsense. It's just lazy UI design.

I have a reasonably good rig, I suffer no video card lag whatsoever, the only lag I get is from the UI and doors, both are real annoyances for me, but I think it's for the most part players tollerence to what they consider lag, and that they want to defend the flaws in the game, like how slow and tedius UI is to navigate and they'll argue that they do not suffer any lag or slowdown with the UI, ignorance is bliss as they say.

I have bad menu lag. I am also on some of the slowest DSL on the planet. Kind of like running a Ferrari on regular unleaded. I threw in an 5770 on the off chance that there was an issue with my more powerful card, but the older card plays the game just as smoothly... Menu lag still there.

It *feels* like actions are looking for an ACK from the server. It feels a lot like some of the commands lag I would occasionally see when the connection is going particularly slow in FFXI.

To be honest, we can post specs all day long and never really get anywhere. The only people who truly have the answer, aren't talking. Why can't someone from Zam just... Ask them?

Myself I'm running a core 2 duo E5200 Oc'd to 3.3ghz, GTX 460, 4 Gigs DDR2 ram, game runs ok. It's a huge CPU bottleneck though, regardless if I set it to low or max resolution, I get the same performance since my CPU is being abused. Overall though, for max settings, it runs pretty smooth for the most part. My buddy though, has an i7 920, SLI'd GTX 480's, 4 gigs DDR ram, crazy setup, and he says he gets brutal lag and stuttering. From what I've seen, my connection is great, great, great, then I start to craft, goes yellow... red... then green again, only when crafting. So that there is obviously some server sided issues. The other issue here is people's tolerance to things such as lag and stuttering will vary GREATLY, some people think waiting 2-3 seconds in between screens while crafting is normal. Others will think it's retarded and unbearable.

The fact that this game abuses the **** out of my CPU even on the lowest possible settings while my GPU just does a bit of the work, there's a huge problem somewhere. My temps and all that are great, but it's just at 100% use the whole time, no other game does that. I know my CPU is on the low end of the spectrum, but when the game looks like an 8bit nintendo game, my CPU shouldn't be getting the **** kicked out of it that badly.

I wonder if lag is actually that bad because SE is holding back on improving the server bandwith because of the current free period. I'd like to think otherwise but I wouldn't put it past SE. I'm using Frontier DSL service (3MB) for my connection shared between three people. Fortunately only two of us use the service for actual gameplay, the other uses it for web surfing on a Wii system.

By the way not to derail this too much, but can systems eat up your bandwith even when off? One person in my household uses a hub in his room with a PC, PS2, PS3, and 360 all connected at once. The systems are normally off unless he uses the PS2 and 360 for dual-boxing FFXI. Other times he for God knows what reason insists he has to run the PS2 and 360 for FFXI, and the PC for FFXIV and try to play them simultaneously. Doesn't really work however as he mostly just idles in FFXIV while he plays on FFXI power-leveling himself or a party.

EDIT: Should note I've never really experienced any lag of great magnitudes minus the UI in FFXIV, when he uses all his systems at once like I said above I don't really see any differences. UI lag seems to be roughly 2-3 seconds for stuff like my retainer, loading bazaars, loading menus, looking at my inventory, etc. with about 1-2 seconds, sometimes 3-4 for combat.

I think his machine runs as it should, considering he meets the minimum requirements. His UI lag is no different than my machine, which is much more powerful. That being said, I think most are correct in saying that it's server side lag when it comes to the UI.

I think his machine runs as it should, considering he meets the minimum requirements. His UI lag is no different than my machine, which is much more powerful. That being said, I think most are correct in saying that it's server side lag when it comes to the UI.

Right now as I type this I'm seeing about 15FPS in the Adventurer's Guild in Gridania. Outside of the area I see better framerates, mostly 50-60 when in the fields.

This is the system running and I experience almost zero lag occasionally I get the little blurt but that is far in between. Also I am running on the default settings, haven't tinkered around with them to much since all I wanted to-do was be IG when I first got XIV.

This is the system running and I experience almost zero lag occasionally I get the little blurt but that is far in between. Also I am running on the default settings, haven't tinkered around with them to much since all I wanted to-do was be IG when I first got XIV.

When you say zero lag I just wanna clarify this... When you go to add/remove items from your retainer there is no delay at all? You can remove an item, and it immediately puts it in your inventory? Here's what I'm and probably many others are experiencing:

When equipping an action to your action bar it doesn't show up right away but can take up to 3 seconds or longer for the change to appear. When you spend points to boost your attributes the effect isn't seen right away. Try this, go into your "Point Allotment" menu and assign some points to a trait. Hit apply and then immediately open the Point Allotment up again. You will see the old values still and there will probably be a delay (2-3 seconds) before it actually updates with your changes.

When equipping your armor there is a slight delay (again 2-3 seconds maybe.) before your armor changes are reflected. When opening your inventory there may be a slight delay (2-3 seconds again.) before the menu displays. When you open your emote list (N key on the keyboard.) there may be a 1-2 second delay.

These are just a few examples. Under normal circumstances you might not even notice it. But it happens with virtually any menu/action you take. With FFXI if you've played that things weren't instant but everthing was pretty fluid and responsive. Mind you I'm not trying to make a comparison between the two here, only use it as an example as pretty much going from any game where your actions are more responsive to FFXIV's UI you're sure to notice the difference.

Had all settings to low, no physics/extended drawing in-game, 1440x990 full-screen. FPS was anywhere betweeen 20-60FPS, and UI lag, the topic of this thread, was anything from 1-30 seconds (selling stuff to NPCs in mid-high peak load times.)

About a week ago I received a QX9650 Core 2 Quad Extreme, that I got OEM, due to everyone telling me "Oh, FFXIV runs much better on a quad-core," and I didn't want to go to the i3-7 series just yet. Also, although people were running Crossfire/SLI, people found out that the game still isn't optimized for it, so I simply turned it off.